Father Goose: His Book - Collaboration

Collaboration

The book grew out of Baum's first published verse collection, the previous year's By the Candelabra's Glare, which concluded with a section of poems for children. Baum expanded upon that section to create a new collection of nonsense verse; the 72 poems in Father Goose included two from the earlier book. Denslow had contributed two illustrations to Baum's first collection of poems, and had worked on Baum's trade periodical, The Show Window — though Father Goose was the two men's first sustained collaborative project. It was notable as a generally equal collaboration: Denslow sometimes drew pictures to Baum's poems, but Baum sometimes wrote or revised his verse in response to Denslow's drawings. Most commentators agree that Denslow's pictures outmatch Baum's texts; Denslow's illustrations for Father Goose have been considered his best work.

"Denslow's picture are both stylish and humorous. Moreover, he did not merely draw illustrations for the verse; he arranged pictures, color, and text to make an artistically unified page, so that the book resembled 'a series of art posters bound together.'" The result "is more Denslow's than Baum's book, for the art dominates and at times overpowers the text." (Denslow appreciated the quality of his own work; in a portent of future trouble between the two collaborators, he drafted a cover for the book with his own name in larger letters than Baum's. Denslow had to be talked into re-doing the cover with greater equality.)